Friday, August 16, 2013

QUICK NOTES ON SOLA SCRIPTURA (Part 8)

“All
Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate,
equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 – NASV)

This will be
the eighth and final article in this particular series on Sola Scriptura
(“Bible Alone”).Today we will
specifically address an argument that is very commonly used by Catholics (as
well as others).Many enemies of Sola
Scriptura consider this argument to be the super-duper, one-punch-one-kill, granddaddy-of-all-arguments
against the teaching of Sola Scriptura.It is an argument about the canon (i.e., the list of books that are
included in Scripture).And it goes like
this:

ARGUMENT #8
– HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE IN THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE BIBLE ALONE WHEN THE BIBLE
NEVER EVEN REVEALS ITS OWN CANON?WE
NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE CANON IS WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, AND SINCE IT’S NOT IN
THE BIBLE, WE NEED ANOTHER INFALLIBLE SOURCE TO TELL US.

Again, let’s
remember the definition of Sola Scriptura… that the Bible is the only
infallible Rule of Faith for the church today.And because of that, it is our ultimate moral standard.But this does not mean that the Bible has to
be an exhaustive source of every bit of spiritual information that ever existed.

It is true
that the Bible does not contain a specific list of all its books.God indeed chose not to place such a list
within its pages, but this doesn’t make the Bible insufficient as a rule of faith (as is evident in 2
Timothy 3:16-17).

But the premise of the “canon argument”
is wrong to start with.This whole
argument is ASSUMING the need for “infallible certainty.”That’s what the argument is really all about, and this supposed
“need” is a widespread assumption in the Catholic Church.But this article is not about WHO determined
the canon… it’s not about HOW we got the canon… it’s not even about WHAT the
true canon is.It’s simply demonstrating
that:1) the canon does NOT NEED to be
listed in the Bible and 2) Catholics don’t really have the certainty that they
claim to have.

Catholics
often boast about their infallible certainty, but if infallible certainty on
the canon is so important to the Catholic Church, then why was the canon not
“infallibly” defined until the Council of Trent in 1546?It seems that the Catholic Church talks a
good talk, but has done a very poor job of actually providing its members with any
real certainty, much less the
certainty that it so proudly claims. For
the first 1500 years of church history, Catholic Tradition has failed to provide
infallible certainty on the canon issue. Not only that, but their present canon also
has some problematic issues (see the links below). So, this “infallible-certainty-on-the-canon”
argument sounds good, but it is nothing but a delusion.

So, we have reason to question
the Catholic’s claim to certainty on the canon.But we also have reason to question his certainty on Bible
interpretation, as well, because the Catholic Church also claims to have
infallibly interpreted certain Bible verses.But there are over 31,000 verses in the Bible, and only a tiny percentage of these verses is
“infallibly” interpreted by the Catholic Church.Catholic apologists disagree on the actual
number of these verses (some say 8, some 11, some 20, etc.), but even if there
were 100 verses that the Church had officially and “infallibly” interpreted
over the centuries, that would still only be about THREE ONE-THOUSANDTHS OF ONE
PERCENT (.003%) of the Bible infallibly interpreted!To get an idea of the size of this percentage,
this would be equal to only 16 feet out of a full mile, or only 26 hours out of
a full year.If a company had 2,000
employees, this would be like having only 6 of them show up for work.Again, these examples represent the extremely
small percentage of Bible verses that carry the Church’s guarantee that they
are correctly interpreted.This is
pretty weak for a group that so often scoffs at Protestants for their “lack of
certainty.”

Only 100 verses in 2,000 years?If this is any indication of the rate of
progress for “infallible certainty” in the Catholic Church, then take heart, dear
Catholics – you only have a half-million years or so (620,000 to be exact) to
achieve complete infallible certainty on the whole Bible!This should hardly be reassuring to
Catholics.If the Catholic Church is all
that it claims to be, and it is really
concerned about giving its people “infallible certainty,” it surely could have
done better than this in 2,000 years.

If the Catholic Church feels the need to infallibly interpret
Scripture in the first place, then why so few verses?Why not all of it, or at least most of it? And isn’t it interesting how certain uniquely-Catholic concepts (however
unbiblical) have made their way into this list of “infallible” teachings (e.g.,
the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, etc.).Is it just me, or is this suspicious to anyone
else?Are they perfectly satisfied with just a few
verses interpreted this way, as long as some of their pet doctrines can achieve
this “infallible status”?

Catholic apologists may object and say that it was never the
intention of the Church to infallibly interpret ALL Bible verses, and they only
did this when disputes came up.But
many, many disputes came up over the centuries that never ended up in the “infallibly
declared” category, so this is not a valid objection.

Ironically, there is so much
confusion and disagreement about this, evenamong Catholic leaders and apologists.Catholics will admit that this topic is
complex and multi-layered, and no one seems to really be able to say exactly which statements are properly considered
“infallible.”This fact simply
emphasizes to us, all the more, that
the great “certainty” that the Catholic boasts about is a mere fantasy.

Another problem with the canon
argument is that many (if not most) Catholics today seem to believe in the
“material sufficiency” view of the Bible (See Part 6 of this series).This view states that the Bible has all the
necessary “material” in it.If that’s
true, then the canon (which is not in there) must not NEED to be in the
Bible.So, if the “material sufficiency”
view is correct, this canon argument against Sola Scriptura cannot be true.No one can hold to the canon argument and to the “material sufficiency” view
at the same time.

One more
objection against the canon argument is that if a rule of faith (the Bible)
must have a list of its contents (the canon), then what about the Catholic Church’s own rule of
faith?Where is the “canon” of Catholic Tradition?It does not exist.So, if the concept of Sola Scriptura fails because the Bible doesn’t have an infallible
list of its own books, then Tradition
also fails since it doesn’t list its own contents, either.This is certainly a double standard on their
part.

In conclusion, this
“granddaddy-of-all-arguments” is based on the false premise that we MUST have “infallible
certainty” of the canon.But the fact
is, only God can have this kind of certainty.We can’t.Still, by His grace, we
humans can have a reasonable and sufficient certainty on God’s inspired
books.He leaves us free to search out
other sources (e.g., church history, the fathers, etc.), to use discernment,
evaluate the available evidence, and use our fallible minds to arrive at a
reasonable conclusion.

So, the fact that the canon is
not specifically listed within the pages of Scripture does nothing to affect
the Bible’s sufficiency as our Ultimate Rule of Faith.

About Me

Hello, my name is Russell and I was raised Catholic for about twenty years or so, but I am now non-denominational. I believe that a person's doctrine affects his relationship with God, therefore, scriptural teaching is of the utmost importance. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or send me an email.